Google Analytics offers a lot of good information, but not everybody knows how to read it.  Today, I will show you how to compare your best performing keywords that bring people into your web site and compare it to the average traffic of your website.

To get started, you will want to login to Google Analytics, go to your site’s profile.  Next, on the left side of the screen click on Traffic Sources and then Keywords.  This will take you to the Keyword Overview screen for your domain.

Now, you can see your most popular keywords.  This screen shows all the paid and non-paid keywords people use to find your website. By default, the keywords are sorted by highest to lowest by how many visits they have brought to your website.

Click on the comparison view to see how individual popular keywords compare to the website average.

So if I were to start advertising, I would want to target some of these better keywords for my website, such as “paint.net tutorials” and “wordpress alternatives”.  Even when you take advertising out of the picture, you could also say these would be good areas to focus on when it comes to future articles or tutorials.

Hope that helps you out when using and trying to understand Google Analytics on your own.  By understanding which keywords out perform the site average, you can see where you might need to shift your attention to in future marketing or website development.

Above you can see the results of the Mitchelaneous RSS subscription feed numbers in comparison with my podcast, the Web Hosting Show.  You can also drag over a specific time frame to zoom in on the results.   Now lets see what happens when you compare the Web Hosting Show with The WHIR’s main daily news feed:

The Web Hosting Show is hanging in there – was actually surprised how close we were.  Is this the part where I am suppose to beg you to go subscribe to the Web Hosting Show’s RSS feed so we can beat them?  Ok, well you can – but it is all in good fun.  As you can see, FeedCompare.com can be a lot of fun.

I am not setting up business meetings. I am not planning every second of every day. I want a calendar that will allow me to do the simple task of leaving one note on a day saying that I need to do something. Just like you would write down on your traditional calendar.

Yahoo! Calendar

Now that you know what I wanted – now I will tell you what I looked at. Yahoo! Calendar was the first one I looked at, since I already use Yahoo! Mail for my E-mail needs. The major problem here is that they have yet to update the calendar interface to match the snazzy new Yahoo! Mail interface. It keeps transporting me back to the old ugly Yahoo! Mail interface to look at my calendar. Not good at all.

Final Thoughts on Yahoo! Calendar:
Built in functionality with Yahoo’s E-mail and Notes, too bad Calendar and Notes have yet to get a redesign to match Yahoo’s new webmail interface.

Yahoo’s calendar was easy enough to add to (just click the add link on the date) but it still asked me to fill in about five more boxes than I wanted to. I liked the fact that it had various views, but I want the 30 day traditional look. Maybe once Yahoo! updates it to match and work better with the new Web mail interface I will give it a second shot. Right now though it is not for me.

30 Boxes

Next up I tried 30 Boxes. This looks a lot better than Yahoo! Mail (cleaner interface, easier time getting started) but still seems to be lacking in a few areas. I don’t need a big social experience with my calendar. Nobody wants to know the dates I have marked and I am not sure I would want them to know either.

Adding an event was super easy, a two click process. I really liked that. 30 Boxes just didn’t give me the right vibe though. It is a nice tool, but not the one I am looking for right now.

Final Thoughts on 30 Boxes:
Quick and easy access to your calendars – but the customization is a little strange. I would like to see Yahoo! buy them out and build toss it in as a replacement to the calendar Yahoo! offers right now.

Google Calendar

So that leaves us with Google Calendar. Now I had looked at Google’s Online calendar before and was a little less than impressed. The idea of having different color coded calendars won me over though. It was as easy to add to as 30 Boxes and gave me the interaction with other services (which I was looking for at Yahoo with the webmail and calendar interaction).

I also was able to setup a widget-like thing on my Google personalized start page to show my calendar as well. This, plus having Google Reader on my start page are the reasons I use Google’s over all the others out there.

Final Thoughts on Google Calendar:
The king of the mountain as far as Online calendars go right now. Quick and easy interface – and then you toss in the fact it works with my start page? This one takes the best of the previous two and gives me something I can use.

So Who Was the Winner? You!

So when the dust settled and I was ready to make my mind up, I decided to go with Google Calendar. The good thing here is that many different people have many different needs. So with this many options, everybody should be able to find what they are looking for. You might just have to go out and do a few taste test with all of them before you find the one you really love to use.

Do you have a favorite? If so – tell me what it is and why you use it!